Definition
An obsolete Latin term from old English law meaning "an account" — specifically, a formal rendering of accounts owed to a superior, such as a lord, estate, or court. The phrase *compotum reddere* means to render an account, and *de compoto reddendo* refers to the obligation of rendering an account. The term appears in medieval English statutes and legal texts governing the duties of stewards, bailiffs, and other agents who held or managed property or funds on behalf of another.
The term is functionally equivalent to its later form, *computus*, which displaced *compotus* in subsequent legal usage and remains the more recognizable Latin accounting term.
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Common Confusion
COMPOTUS and COMPUTUS are variant forms of the same term. *Compotus* is the earlier spelling; *computus* is the more modern Latin form. Researchers encountering either spelling in historical sources are looking at the same legal concept. Burrill notes the transition explicitly, directing readers from *compotus* to *computus* as the preferred later usage. Do not treat the two spellings as distinct legal concepts.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term belongs almost entirely to the medieval stratum of English legal history. Researchers encountering *compotus* will find it in contexts involving manorial administration, the duties of estate officers, and early forms of the action of account — the predecessor to modern accounting actions in equity and at common law.
The key navigational point: *compotus* appears in primary statutory sources, specifically the Statute of Marlborough (1267) and the Statute of Westminster II (1285), as well as in Fleta, the late thirteenth-century legal treatise. Any researcher tracing the historical origins of account-rendering obligations, fiduciary duties of agents, or the writ of account (*de computo*) should expect to encounter this spelling in those sources. Modern secondary literature will typically use *computus* or translate the term outright.
Researchers using Law Mind's corpus for historical English law — particularly manorial, estate, or early equity materials — should index both spellings when searching. Optical character recognition errors in digitized medieval and early modern texts may render the term inconsistently; variant spellings (*compoti*, *compotum* in the genitive and accusative forms) will appear in context-dependent grammatical constructions.
There is no American legal usage of this term. It does not appear in U.S. statutory or case law. Research utility is confined to English legal history prior to approximately the seventeenth century.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole historical shelf source covering this term, and its entry is brief but precise. Burrill correctly identifies *compotus* as old English law Latin for "an account," cites the Statute of Marlborough (c. 22) and the Statute of Westminster II (c. 11) as statutory authorities, and points to Fleta (lib. 2, c. 14, §1; c. 30; c. 70) for the Latin phrases *compotum reddere* and *de compoto reddendo*. Burrill also flags the transition to *computus* as the more modern form.
No other standard historical legal dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus (Jacob, Tomlin, Black's early editions) provide independent entries for *compotus* as distinct from *computus*. This is consistent with the term's obsolescence — by the time most English legal dictionaries were compiled in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, *compotus* had already given way to *computus* in active usage. Researchers should treat Burrill's entry as a pointer to primary sources rather than a standalone analysis.
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Jurisdictional Note
*Compotus* is exclusively an old English law term. It has no recognized counterpart in Scots law, civil law systems, or American law. Jurisdictional variation is not a live research issue; the term's relevance is historical and geographically limited to the English legal tradition.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Accounting (Historical); Manorial Administration; Statute of Westminster II
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